A Little Off Center
by oldandnewfirm
Summary: An assortment of short fills written for various prompts across Livejournal. Multiple pairings/genres within; peruse and enjoy!
1. Morning After

A ficlet inspired by speculation as to what tattoos Guerrero and Chance might have over on the WPTJEH Livejournal community.

* * *

Guerrero peeled his head from the pillow far enough to confirm that yes, it was daylight, and yes, the sun freaking _hurt _before groaning and flipping onto his right side- facing instead the prone (and now, thanks to Guerrero's outburst, steadily rousing) form of Junior.

When Junior's eyes cracked open he winced and flung an arm over his face. Then, just as quickly, he raised it to squint at the man lying next to him.

"_Guerrero?_"

"Last time I checked, though I'd rather not be at the moment."

Junior pushed himself onto his elbows, eyes still narrowed as he took in his surroundings. "Wait, wha-? Is this my room?"

Guerrero looked around. Sneakers on the ground. Sweatshirt and an old Rolling Stones tee piled on top of a battered black suitcase. More bottles of _Dos Equis_ than he could count littering the table, the windowsill, the floor. And- as a chaser, he supposed- a brown-bagged bottle of some liquor he couldn't identify but, judging by the taste in his mouth and the delicate perfume of Junior's morning breath wafting through the air, was probably whiskey. A good night, then. Pity he couldn't remember it.

"Nope." Guerrero said. "It's mine. I'm gonna guess you crashed here after- well."

He gestured to the colorful array of refuse from the night before.

"Oh." Said Junior. Then, "Ugh, my head..."

"You and me both, dude." Guerrero said.

"And my hip."

"What?"

"It stings."

"Did you bruise it?"

"Mm. Don't remember."

Junior hooked a thumb in the waist of his jeans and tugged the side away from Guerrero down. Junior's reaction seemed plucked from the pages of a self-help book: Confusion. Denial. Anger. Okay, back to confusion. And then Junior turned and gawked at him.

"There's a hummingbird on my hip." Junior said.

"_What?_"

"A tattoo. On my hip. Of a hummingbird."

Guerrero raised his eyebrows. Then, steadily, his lips curled up and apart into a grin.

Chance drew back, held up his hands. "No, wait-"

Guerrero sprang, catching Junior off guard not with the movement but with the speed of its execution- after all, Guerrero had had plenty of years to master the art of high performance in the aftermath of an all-night bender. Junior hit the mattress with a _whumph_-

"No, seriously Guerrero, stop!"

"Dude, relax, just let me see!"

-and the two tousled for a moment before Junior caught Guerrero's arm in a way that sucked the breath out of him and sent him reeling back to his own side of the mattress.

"What's wrong?" Junior asked at once. Guerrero shook his head and pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt, wincing as the fabric caught on-

Guerrero stared at his shoulder. Then he stared at Junior staring at his shoulder, and Junior in turn managed to meet Guerrero's gaze for about five seconds before he collapsed to his side, his entire body spasming with laughter.

"Shut up." Guerrero growled.

"A unicorn!" Junior gasped out.

"Shut. _Up._"

"It's got- the mane is a _rainbow!_ Oh god, it hurts but I can't stop laughing-!"

"Really?" Guerrero deadpanned. "Let me help you with that."

He leaned over and slapped Chance on the hip. Hard.

"Ha ha-_ ow!_


	2. Round One

For prompt: Human Target, Ava/Guerrero, turns out Guerrero is much more Ava's type.

* * *

"Eva?"

Eva looked up, hand and water glass poised halfway to her mouth. The man standing over her didn't bother hiding the once-over he gave her; at least he wasn't so bad looking himself. A little scrawnier than she liked, maybe, but he was wearing so many layers it was hard to tell.

She tipped her head to the side and looked at him through her hair. "Do I know you?"

"No. Frank does, though. Name's Guerrero." He offered his hand.

Ah.

She'd been wrong, she realized; the sharp lines of his wrist and forearm hinted at well-honed muscle beneath all those clothes. When Eva shook his hand she felt the rough contours of a calloused knuckle beneath the pad of her thumb, and the uneven angles of two once-broken fingers wrapping over her palm. A fighter's hand.

"Guerrero...you're with the guy who was working for Eddie. Chance."

He slid onto the seat opposite her. "You're thorough."

"So are you, from what I hear. Frank said you were the best."

"That's why you hired me, isn't it?"

"Confident too. But I haven't hired you yet." She slid a plain manilla envelope across the table. "Let's see what you can do for me, first."

Guerrero pulled the sheaf of documents from the envelope and started flipping through them.

"Wow," He said, after a minute or so. "Frank wasn't kidding. You really are in over your head."

She frowned. "He said that?"

"Not in so many words, but the implication was there...You were in Belgium, huh? How'd you get mixed up with Naylor?"

Good question. Wish I knew.

Out loud she said, "It's a long story."

"I've got time. Maybe over drinks?"

"Was that a casual suggestion, or an invitation?"

Guerrero's lip quirked. "Half and half. Whichever you prefer."

Eva considered him for a long moment. Then she reached into her clutch and fished out a ten dollar bill.

"Kalamazoo Stout," She said, smiling slightly. "And I think we'll go with casual suggestion. You might want to try that invitation again, though, when this mess is all cleared up."

Guerrero tapped the bill against his forehead as though he was tipping an imaginary hat, then stood and headed towards the bar.


	3. Hurt

Inspired by a discussion on the WPTJEH LJ community during which someone speculated that Guerrero might have been a drug user at some point in his life.

* * *

_"Don't shit where you eat."_

It was the first rule of dealing and the only one that mattered. The veterans generally agreed that never had there been a phrase that summarized so well the cautions inherent to their profession, nor one that (barring attacks from rival gangs, harassment from over-vigilant neighbors, or police intervention) could keep you alive and working the streets long enough for you to climb above the midnight beat and onto a more lucrative rung of the ladder.

Of course rules only work if they're followed.

* * *

"He got a name?"

The "he" in question was a lump in the corner hidden beneath a stained red blanket. Goodie shrugged.

"Dunno. We call him Rat."

"Is he?" The man asked sharply.

"What?"

"Is he a rat?"

"What? No..." Goodie's brows pinched in confusion.

"Is he a snitch? That why you call him rat?"

"Oh. Oh! No man, no. He's cool. 'S just what he looks like, you know? A rat. He's got a ratty face. Rat-a-tat-tat."

"Right." The man didn't sound impressed.

"But man, no, it's more than that! You should see him in a fight. He fights like one too. A rat, right? You drop a couple of 'em in a box, those fuckers'll tear each other's throats out. They're tur-turrita-"

"Territorial?"

"Yeah, that. They don't like other rats in their turf. You get what I'm sayin'?"

"Is he awake?" The man gestured towards The Lump That Was Rat.

"Huh?" Goodie said. Then, after his brain caught up with the shift in the man's attention, "Oh, I dunno. HEY RAT, YOU UP MAN?"

"Couldn't help it." Came the reply from beneath the blanket. "You never shut your mouth."

"You got a visitor. He gave me twenty bucks to bring 'im here. Says he's got more."

"Keep your voice down." The man hissed. Other figures slumped around the room in various stages of coherence. Some had perked at the mention of money; their glassy eyes now focused on the scene between the three men.

"More? How much more?" Rat asked.

The man didn't respond right away. Instead he gingerly knelt to the cement, leaned over The Lump That Was Rat, and whispered a number into the rough location of his ear.

Rat's head popped from beneath the blanket at bruising speed, catching both the man and Goodie by surprise. The former, however, swore as his motion to evade Rat had landed him on his ass in the copious and unidentifiable muck of the crack house floor.

"The hell do you think-" The man began, but the words died as he finally got a good look at Rat's face.

Rat's eyes seemed bright and piercing as headlights in the bleary fug of the room. They fixed the man with a stare edged by hunger- nothing new, all addicts were greedy for something- but there was an intelligence there that didn't belong in a face so gaunt and ravaged by whatever the hell was flowing in the kid's veins. It was fuckin' creepy is what it was.

"What do you want me to do?" Rat asked.

The man rocked up onto the balls of his feet, trying very hard not to think about whatever lukewarm substance was now soaking into the back of his pants. "Relocation."

Rat snorted and swept the greasy tangles of his brown hair away from his forehead. "What, you moving across town or something? You came all the way out here for that?"

"No." The man reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out an envelope, and held it out to Rat. "Not really."

Rat scooted up into a sitting position and sliced the envelope open with a blunt fingernail. There were photographs inside, each with locations and times scribbled on the bottom, and a post-it note bearing an address.

"Can you read?" The man asked, when Rat said nothing for several minutes.

"Of course I can read, I'm not retarded." Rat said flatly. He replaced the contents of the envelope and closed the flap. "You're asking me to- is this what I think it is?"

He said it more to his collar than to the man, in a voice so low it was hard to read any emotion from it.

"Maybe. That depends on what your answer would be."

Rat's tongue flicked across his lips. The envelope bunched under the strain of his grip.

"When would I get paid?"

"You say yes, and I'll give you a number. You call after it's done, and you'll get an address. Go to that address and you'll get payment in full. Cash."

"How do I know this isn't a setup?"

"Like you said, long way to go for just a setup. Besides, I would never have heard of you if it weren't for your friend Goodie here."

Goodie grinned, pleased to have been mentioned even if he'd kind of forgotten why he was standing there in the first place.

"You in or not? If not, I'm sure I could find other takers."

And there were more junkies listening now. The man could feel them staring, could hear the edges of their slurred whispers.

"Yeah." Rat said. Then, more softly, "Yeah man. Sure."

The man reached into his jacket once more. This time he produced a snub-nosed revolver and pressed it into Rat's bony hands.

"Ever used one, kid?"

Rat nodded. A lie, thought the man, or at least he'd never used one for real. He'd probably shot cans off his backyard fence with a BB gun at best.

"Just aim straight and don't second guess yourself. It's always hard the first time."

"First time?"

"There'll be other jobs, of course, if you come through with this one- put that thing away, will you kid? You're making me nervous- and better payment too. Eventually. For now, consider this a trial run."

He stood.

"Hey uh. Hey. Hey guy?" Goodie tapped the man on the shoulder, and quickly retracted his finger at the look the man gave him. "I brought you to here, to him. Didn't you say I'd get...?"

"Twenty each way, yeah, I remember." The man extended a bill to Goodie, who snatched it and crowed with joy.

"You have until Thursday." The man said to Rat. "And you've only got one shot."

"If I fail?"

The man, who'd started sweeping the worst of the muck from his pants leg, paused long enough to fix Rat with a wide, white grin.

"Don't worry. We'll find you."

* * *

It was in the papers Wednesday morning: African-American man gunned down in some lonely little alley on Grant Street. No witnesses, or at least none stupid enough to come forward. The article, if you could call it that, was barely more than a paragraph. It'd be gone and forgotten by the weekend.

Rat came slinking in at ten past noon, right on time. His too-bright eyes scanned the room as he entered, taking in every detail before finally settling on the man sitting behind the desk.

"$1200, as promised." The man said, sliding a bound wad of bills across the table. "Wasn't so hard, was it?"

For a moment, Rat said nothing. Then:

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why'd you want him dead?"

"Does it matter?"

Another, longer pause. "No."

"Right. Your job's to pull the trigger, not to ask questions."

The man tapped his finger on the desk, thinking. "But if you must know, our friend there decided to take a little more than his fair share of the till. Guess he thought we wouldn't miss a few dollars here and there."

Rat pulled the rubber band off the wad and started counting each bill.

"Bet a smart guy like you would know better, right?"

Rat glanced over, but didn't say anything.

"You know, I was lying when I said I hadn't heard of you, kid."

That got Rat's attention. The man grinned.

"Ziti was an old acquaintance of mine. Once mentioned a kid in his crew, one of his dealers, who showed some real promise. At least until he started sampling the product."

Rat grunted.

"You hear a lot of things." He said. Bills counted, he dropped them into the pocket of the small duffel bag bouncing on his hip. "We done here?"

"You could do with some manners." The man said shortly.

"Sorry."

There wasn't a lick of actual apology in it, but it was probably the best he was going to get. The kid's body was trembling like he was overdue for a fix.

"Yeah. We're done. Oh, and you can keep that gun. Consider it an investment in what I hope will prove to be a lucrative future between us- if you're still interested, that is."

Rat's face hardened for a moment. Then he shook his head as though clearing out whatever doubts had seized his tongue.

"You know where to find me, dude."

After Rat had gone, the man reached across the desk and picked up the phone.

"Hey Ziti? It's Joubert. Just wanted to thank you for the recommendation. Yeah, he got the job done. Quietly too. First time? I'm pretty sure, yeah. What? Oh. Heh, right. Are you kidding? If he's this good strung he must be a monster sober. I think I'm actually gonna put a little work into this one..."


	4. Stitches

Written for a prompt on commentfic. Chance (Junior)/Guerrero pre-slash.

* * *

"All right, flip over. Let's see what we're dealing with here."

Guerrero does as asked. Apparently his shirt makes a handy washcloth, but it's not like he was going to wear it again anyway, damaged as it is. Junior swabs it over his back to clear away the bulk of the blood, and a moment later he feels Junior's fingers gently prodding at his back.

"Well," says Junior, "It's not deep, but it's not really shallow either. You can still feel everything, right?"

"Yeah."

"No nerve damage then. I think the best thing for it is to put in a suture until we get to Reno. Your guy can look at it then."

With that Junior reaches past him to drag over his duffel bag and starts rummaging through it.

"You could at least ask first, dude." Guerrero says, and he starts to sit straight again before wincing. It's not the worst knife wound he's gotten but it still stings like a bitch; he can feel the skin around it gaping every time he moves.

"Sorry." Junior flashes a smile that's more amused than apologetic.

"You have done this before, right?" Guerrero asks after a few moments.

"Please. I've done plenty of stitches."

Guerrero raises an eyebrow.

"...Well, okay, it was mostly tailoring, but it's the same in theory right?"

"_Dude_."

"Relax. You'll be fine."

"Really? If I end up in the hospital with a sub-dermal infection, I'm forwarding the bill on to you."

"Tch. Is that how they treat Good Samaritans these days?"

"Who knows? _You're_ certainly not one of them."

Something- or perhaps a pair of somethings- went _clink_ in the duffel bag.

"Hey dude, careful with the merchandise." Guerrero says.

"I don't even understand half the crap you have in here. Christmas lights? Pipe cleaners? A bag of sugar?"

"You'd be amazed at what you can do to the human body with a pipe cleaner."

"What about the sugar?"

"I like sweet tea."

Junior rolls his eyes.

At last he wrestles the first aid kit from the depths of the bag. It's actually a small fishing tackle, brimming with the kind of gear you'd be hard pressed to find off the shelf. The small bottle of betadine Junior uncaps isn't unusual, but the thick, hooked needle and spool of suture thread he pulls out after he's cleaned and dried the wound are.

"All right," Says Junior, then "Here."

Junior plucks Guerrero's sweatshirt from the floor and presses it into his hands.

"What- aw, c'mon dude. Can't you at least find a stick?"

"Do you see one?"

"This thing is gross.

"So turn it inside out! There's not that much blood on the front, and it hasn't soaked through yet. You won't even notice it."

Guerrero concedes the point, but he still sighs as he twists the sweatshirt in his hands and waits. Junior holds the suture needle over the flame of a lighter; his lips move soundlessly as he counts down the seconds. It's one of those weird little habits of his that he may or may not know about, like how he scratches his elbow when he's thinking hard, or the fact that he taps out the tune to "The Final Countdown" with his foot when a conversation grows boring. Guerrero's started keeping a list. After all, he never knows when he'll need blackmail material, or embarrassing stories to tell Junior's maybe-someday kids.

"Ow," Says Junior, and he bounces the needle from hand to hand until it's cool enough to pinch between his fingers again.

"It's done anyway." He says at Guerrero's questioning look.

"I'm not sure about this, Junior."

"Relax, it'll be fine. Now get ready. Really! Go on, bend over."

Guerrero rattles off the half-remembered lines of a prayer in his head, bites down on the wound sweatshirt, and waits.

"FUCK." He barks a second later, but it comes out more as "FWUGH" through the fabric.

"Yeah, sorry. Hey, it's not _my_ fault you don't have any anesthetics in here."

"I'll be rectifying that soon." Guerrero mutters. Tears prick in the corner of his eyes, and he keeps up a steady stream of obscenities as the needle plunges again and again through layers of skin. It feels like forever before Junior claps him on the shoulder blade and says, "All right. All done."

"Really?" Guerrero says as he pulls the coat sleeve out. His back burns even worse now, but when Junior shows him the results in a pocket mirror, he can't deny that it's a pretty neat job.

"If we find a gas station, I'll get you some ice." Junior says. He's pulling a roll of gauze from the kit, followed by bandages, and soon the wound disappears beneath cotton wrappings. It'll keep the sand out at any rate, at least until they reach Reno.

"I've got to admit, I'm impressed." Guerrero says as they clamber out of the truck bed and head back towards the cab.

"You should know by now that I'm a man of many talents, Guerrero."

There's a warm, familiar undercurrent to those words, and Junior catches his eye for a second too long before turning away to focus on putting the truck in gear.

Guerrero shifts uncomfortably but doesn't have time to dwell on it as a moment later the truck lurches forward- "Honestly, dude, how did you _ever_ earn a license?"- and then they're kicking up a cloud of sand as they barrel through the night, back to the highway.


	5. 2020

Chance/Guerrero, written for an early prompt on the Human Target kinkmeme. This was actually the first HT fic I ever wrote.

* * *

"You know, I've always wondered why you had glasses."

The comment was non-sequiter enough to drag Guerrero's attention from the sheaf of papers he'd been thumbing through. He looked across the room at Chance, who sprawled on the sofa with his head propped against a pillow and the armrest.

"For the same reason anyone else does...?" Guerrero said, letting the last words drag out.

Chance shook his head. "I know why_ technically_, thanks. I meant practically. Why not contacts? You wouldn't have to worry about them falling off or breaking, and you wouldn't have to keep doing that all the time."

"Doing what?"

Chance crooked his middle finger and slid it up the bridge of his nose.

"That. You did it just now."

Guerrero thought for second. "Oh. Yeah. Well to be honest, dude, I've never really been sold on the idea of shoving plastic slivers against my eyeballs."

"Well, shoving might be a bit exaggerated. And it's only weird the first couple of times. Once you get used to it, it's as easy as..."

He half shrugged and twirled his hand vaguely in the air.

"Putting on glasses?" Guerrero offered.

The hand dropped. "Pretty much."

"Yeah, no thanks. Wait. Do you wear contacts?"

"Yeah. You never noticed?"

Guerrero raised an eyebrow. "I don't exactly spend my free time gazing into your eyes."

Chance snorted and shifted his legs off the sofa so that he could stand. He gathered the small collection of leftover beer bottles and plates from lunch off the coffee table and stepped carefully around the sofa, heading towards the kitchen.

"Didn't expect you to," He said. "I'm just surprised that after all this time you never realized."

The pipes rumbled and whined in the walls as the water ran in the sink. Guerrero scribbled notes in the margins of the file in front of him and half-listened to Chance puttering around: dishes clinked, cabinets banged shut, the garbage can swooshed open, then the sink again. Chance emerged from the kitchen shaking his hands dry, and had nearly passed the desk when Guerrero said:

"Let me see."

"What?"

Guerrero tapped his bottom lid.

"Oh! Wait, why?"

"You issued a challenge to my powers of observation, and now I'm curious."

A shrug, and in a few seconds Chance was nearly nose-to-nose with him as he leaned over the desk. With two fingers he pried his eyelids apart, and what do you know? There it was; the faint yet unmistakable outline of a disk over his pupil.

"Huh. Interesting."

Chance released his eyelids and blinked a few times. Irritation gone, he settled onto his forearms, cocked his head to the side and squinted at Guerrero long enough to make the latter shift back in his chair and frown.

"What?"

"I do wonder how you'd look without those."

Guerrero made a vague noise and returned his attention to his work. "I guess we'll never know."

It was easy to forget how fast Chance was until he pulled stunts like these: in one moment Guerrero's glasses were firmly seated on his nose, and in the next they were pinched between Chance's thumb and forefinger while Guerrero reared back like he'd been slapped in the face.

"Not bad," Chance said, easy-as-you-please, while Guerrero could feel anger curling thick through all the spaces in his skull. That was something else Guerrero often forgot: Chance was clearly suicidal.

"Give. Those. Back." His voice was level and soft; his expression was anything but.

"Pretty handsome, actually."

"..._What_?"

Chance had already moved on, so it seemed, and he was bringing Guerrero's glasses up to his eyes and making the faces one usually does as the world shifts and warps before them.

"What are you, myopic?" Chance asked.

"You think I'm handsome?"

Chance shrugged without looking down. "That's what I said, wasn't it?"

Guerrero squeezed his eyes shut, then shook his head. "Chance. Uh."

"Look," Said Chance. He set the glasses back down on the table and mimicked Guerrero's head-shaking motion as the world presumably righted itself. "We've been through this before, haven't we? In overture, at least. Remember that time in Panama?"

"Well yeah, I suppose, but I always figured that was just-" He gestured wildly. "_You_. All part of the roguish charm thing."

Chance's smile curled slow and easy across his jaw. "Not exactly."

"Oh."

Then, for the first time, Chance looked unsure.

"I mean." He swallowed. "Unless you're not...uh..."

"Me?" Guerrero shrugged. "No preference. Makes life easier. I just never expected you'd think the same."

Chance let out a breath. "Well, you know me. I'm full of surprises."

He scratched the back of his neck. "So. Now that that's out there, if you're ever interested…I'm, you know. Available."

Guerrero's mouth quirked. Then, carefully, he shifted his papers and steno pads aside.

"How about right now?" He said.

"What? _Here_, right now?"

"Why not? Winston'll be gone for at least another hour, and I can't do much until he gets back with those records anyway. Besides, I've been staring at this crap for three days straight. I could use a break."

Chance grinned, then caught Guerrero's chin in his hand and leaned forward to press his lips to the sharp curve of Guerrero's jawbone. Guerrero _hmmed_ softly in his throat, a sound that turned to a hiss as Chance's lips caught the lobe of his ear.

"Well," Chance murmured against his skin, "I do aim to please."


	6. Schadenfreude

Written for a prompt on comment_fic: Guerrero + Ames, "Damn. Now he'd have to find a place to hide her body."

* * *

"How'd they know we were here?" Ames gasped as the air exploded with gunfire. A bullet shattered the cabinet above them, sending glass shards and pharmaceuticals raining onto their backs.

"Don't know. Not really important at the moment." Guerrero gritted out. He grabbed her by the shirt sleeve. "This way. Move."

"Jeez, you don't have to _drag_ me."

Guerrero paused long enough to give her a Look which, to his dismay, seemed to be having less and less of an effect on her. As it was she just rolled her eyes and crawled after him into the relative safety of the shadows behind a low pile of crates.

While they crouched, Guerrero ran through his mental map of the building layout. Judging by the angle, the sniper was camped out on one of the higher story balconies overlooking the skylight. Given that this was hardly the sort of apartment building one could just stroll into on a whim, either the sniper had offed a resident to claim his patio or Chance's suspicion about the landlord being in on the murder attempt against their client was right.

A shot pinged off the table they'd been standing near seconds before and embedded itself in the wall to their left. After that the only sounds in the room were their heavy breaths as they waited, tense, in the growing silence.

"Hey," Ames whispered after about two minutes had passed. She started to peer over the crate. "I think he's-"

"No-!"

A shot rang out. Guerrero cringed away from the blood spray as Ames' body bucked, then slumped sideways to the ground.

"Yup." Said Guerrero. "That was stupid."

* * *

"Guerrero!"

"Winston."

"Where the hell are you?"

"Out."

"I gathered that much. You were supposed to meet us half an hour ago!"

"Relax dude. I'm sure you'll survive for another twenty minutes." Guerrero tilted his head to better brace his phone against his shoulder. "Just let Chance know that I'm running late."

"What, you hit traffic or something?"

"No, just a minor detour."

"Is Ames still with you?"

Guerrero considered the garbage-bagged bundle at his feet.

"Yes."

"You two having fun?" Guerrero could hear the grin in his voice through the phone. He smirked.

"Tons."

He leaned down to inspect the locks on the chains binding the bundle to two large blocks of cement.

"Sounds like she's working out then, huh?"

"Actually," Said Guerrero. "I'm over the whole sidekick thing, dude."

Using his foot, he prodded the bundle closer to then over the edge of the small boat he'd borrowed for the occasion. He couldn't deny himself a small smile as the bundle bobbed for a moment, then was swallowed into the depths.


	7. The Way We Were

A young Guerrero's detour through the woods leads to interesting companionship. This is a warmup to a larger piece I'll be writing that focuses on the early days of Chance and Guerrero's friendship.

* * *

"_You should be in school__,_" nagged a voice in David's head. But it was easier to ignore these days, and he did so now as he picked his way through a field littered with bald tires, broken glass, and the rusting skeletons of abandoned cars.

The Bend was the sort of place you only heard about in whispers, not because it was dangerous but because you weren't cool enough to go there. It didn't seem like much from up on the bridge that spanned this part of Miller's Stream and it still wasn't, really. But even a dump like the Bend cleaned up nicely in Autumn, when the trees ringing the field stood proudly in their fall colors and filled the gaps between the garbage with a vibrant carpet of red-and-gold that crunched beneath David's feet as he walked.

"You lost?"

David's head snapped up. The voice came from the mouth of an old train car a few yards away in which stood a blonde boy about David's age. The boy regarded him lazily through the curl of smoke rising from his cigarette.

"No. I just didn't feel like going to school today."

"And you came here instead of the arcade, or the ice cream shop?"

David shrugged. "I don't have any money."

The boy gave him a look like he found that very hard to believe. David felt a pang of self-consciousness as he realized for the first time the contrast between his crisp school clothes and boy's weathered tee and jeans. But the boy seemed more amused than upset.

"I've seen you before," the boy said, after a moment.

"You have?"

"Yeah." he scratched his chin and squinted at David as though trying to place him. Then he snapped his fingers.

"You're the one who broke Douggie's finger!"

"Douggie?" David asked.

"This kid. He's fourteen I think, kinda chubby, pretty pink in the cheeks?" the boy said. "Anyway, I heard he tried to toss you around for a comic book and you kicked him in the balls and snapped his pinky."

"Sounds familiar," David said vaguely.

"Everyone was talking about it. The kids that saw said you fought like you were crazy."

By the time he finished, respect had trickled into the boy's features. David said nothing.

"What's your name, kid?" the boy asked.

"David," he said in a tone that suggested revealing this information had taken serious consideration.

The boy nodded. "David? Well, I'm Luke."

Ah. Each of the Westerly Orphan's Sanctuary boys was infamous in his own right, and the middle school population of P.S. 120 knew them all by name and reputation if not by face. After all, it paid to know which boys might spare your allowance if the wind was right and which would crack your nose like an egg if you so much as squinted at them. Not that David had problems with the boys these days.

Luke, unlike most of the boys, wasn't known as the violent sort, though the ease with which he carried his wiry frame seemed to belie the potential for it. More often David heard his name being whispered by the local shopkeeps as though they were afraid of invoking him. The kids in David's grade had lost count of how many missing titty mags, and cigarettes had been attributed to Luke and his friends, even if they were nowhere near the store in question at the time.

"So," said Luke, "what brings a fine upstanding chap like yourself to the Bend on a school day?"

As he spoke, Luke dropped to the floor of the car and folded his legs under himself. He produced a battered pack of smokes from his jacket pocket and jiggled it in David's direction. David shook his head but accepted the gesture for the invitation it was and hopped up onto the lip of the car.

"I thought it'd be quiet," David said as he sat down.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I was here first."

"I don't mind. You're all right."

"And if I wasn't?" Luke asked, grinning. "After what I've heard..."

David just shrugged. "Nothing. I don't pick fights."

"Really?"

"Really," he said. "I am, however, happy to finish them."

Luke plucked his cigarette from his lips and laughed. David felt himself smiling too, even though he hadn't mean to.

"Tell you what," said Luke after he'd calmed. "You come back here tomorrow, I'll introduce you to some of my pals."

"Yeah?"

"Sure, if you want. We can all hang out."

David had an idea of what that would entail. There was a reason why the police knew the staff at the Sanctuary so well, and a reason why David's dad had forbidden him from so much as looking at kids like Luke.

Of course David didn't plan to waste his life doing something as lame as what he was _told_ to do.

"Sounds fun," said David. "Same time tomorrow?"

Luke bobbed his head, still smiling, and held out a lean-fingered hand. David squinted at it. Then, slowly, he clasped it with his own and accepted an enthusiastic shake.

"I think you and I are gonna get along fine," said Luke around his cigarette.

Though he couldn't be sure why, David agreed.


	8. Recovery

Done for a prompt: Chance/Guerrero, either one of them suffering the ill (after) effects of Dengue fever/Malaria and being nursed by the other. Again, secrets revealed. Slash please.

* * *

Two weeks into Guerrero's recovery and the air in the common ward still smelled of sick. Or maybe that was because he _had_ been sick recently, Chance realized when he caught whiff of the bucket at his friend's bedside. He set down the cup he'd carried in with him and, delicately, took the bucket by the handle and retreated to the washroom to empty and clean it.

He returned to find that Guerrero had roused in his absence, and his bleary eyes now roved the featureless curtain at his bedside. He moaned softly as Chance set the bucket down, or at least that's what Chance thought until Guerrero's head shifted a fraction, letting him squint up expectantly.

"Sorry?" Chance leaned over.

Guerrero sounded like he'd swallowed a mouthful of glass. "I said, 'M not dead yet?'"

Chance patted his elbow. It was as clammy as the rest of him in the broiling heat; even the hair on his arms was limp with sweat.

"Afraid not," he said, smiling.

Chance cranked up the bed, then retrieved the cup he'd set down earlier. Ice sloshed against its sides as he lifted it. Guerrero's eyes rolled to follow its path through the air; his lips had already parted by the time Chance brought the rough plastic rim to his mouth.

Glug by glug, the cup emptied. Twice Chance pulled it back so Guerrero wouldn't choke, earning him a weak glare before Guerrero conceded and drank with less gusto. When he'd finished he closed his eyes and slumped even further into the bedding.

"I fuckin' hate Africa man," Guerrero mumbled. His voice wasn't as rough now.

"I think the feeling is mutual."

Guerrero draped his arm over his eyes and said nothing. Comfortable silence settled between them. Chance took a moment to properly bask beneath the fan over Guerrero's bedside, pitiful though its relief was.

"Go home, dude," said Guerrero.

"Sure. As soon as you're better."

Guerrero frowned. "Could be days, dude. Joubert'll be pissed."

Chance shrugged. "You're valuable. He'll get over it."

"I think you're overestimating Joubert's opinion of me."

For a while Chance said nothing. Then, he sucked in a breath.

"It wasn't his opinion."

Quiet, then, long enough for the threads of anxiety in Chance's stomach to coil into knots. Finally, Guerrero dropped his arm to his chest and gave Chance a watery smirk.

"Dude. Don't get sappy on me. I'm sick, not dying."

"Says the guy who's been asking me "am I dead yet?" for a week."

"Let's table this conversation," said Guerrero, "for when my brain's not trying to pop out of my ears."

"Fair enough," said Chance. Inside, his bones nearly went limp with relief. "See you tomorrow?"

"Mhm."

When Guerrero's breathing slowed and started to even out, Chance gathered his things and started towards the door.

"Thanks."

"Huh?" Chance turned.

"For sticking around." He smiled faintly.

"What happened to 'don't get sappy'?"

At that, Guerrero flipped him off. Chance grinned and left.


	9. Law of the Jungle

**Characters:** Guerrero, Ames  
**Summary:** It's all fun and games until somebody loses a head.

* * *

The first thing Ames did when she got back to her hotel room was spend twenty minutes painting the toilet bowl kool-aid red. She retched until she thought she felt organs plopping into the mix, and even then her stomach still convulsed, bringing up burning, sour air.

Her hand flapped blindly towards the toilet tank and banged against the porcelain until her fingers stumbled upon the handle. She yanked it down, then reared back a hair too late to avoid the fine spray of mess that erupted from the tank.

_-The crack registers like lightning after thunder, and her arm quakes from the recoil, and her face is wet and warm—_

The shower. The shower would do it. She spun the tap until the water grew hot enough to cauterize a wound, which was a fucking miracle given that the average hotel chain seemed to equate hot with a stale pool in October. The water pressure was pitiful, and she found herself hopping around in order to wash away the sudsy spirals of the little soap bar she'd rubbed over, and over, and over against her skin.

She emerged from the bathroom bright-red (_as kool-aid, as blood) _and tingling like she'd sloughed off every cell on her body between the air and her bones. She was only half surprised to find Guerrero sitting on the edge of her bed, waiting for her.

"Hey."

"Hey." She drew her robe tighter across her chest, keenly aware of the chill air drawing goosebumps on her flesh.

"How you doing?"

She swallowed, tried on a smile. "Better."

He raised an eyebrow and gestured with his chin to the empty space on the bed next to him. She went. The stiff springs shrieked under her weight.

_-Heavy, and almost a foot taller than her, but she'd evened those odds, hadn't she? And giddy laughter catches like burrs in her throat, finally force their way out as a something halfway between shriek and sob. Then Chance's hand is on her arm, tight and unyielding, and the ache of it is enough to snap her back to the reality that matters, the one where shock is a luxury because they still need to _run—

"It's tough, the first time." Guerrero said. "You'll get used to it."

She kneaded her thighs through her robe. "What makes you think…"

The look he slanted her was answer enough.

"It was gonna happen eventually," he said. "Happens to everyone at some point in this line of work, no matter what your job description is. But you knew that."

"I did," she said, after a deep breath. She licked her lips, started to say something else. Stopped. "I did. I do."

She blinked, eyes fixed on the fleecy white field of her robe spread over her lap. _White tiles, red now, red and pink and flecked with bone. _ _A half-crescent of intact teeth stand in his jaw, the only survivors of the ruin._

She closed her eyes, pressed the heels of her palms to them. Her stomach had nothing left to give, but she could feel it shuddering.

"Don't think about it," he said sharply. She dragged her hands down to peek at him over her knuckles. "Learn to put the job away at the end of the day. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's not, but there's no point in dwelling on it. You spend too much time in your head, you lose focus. And if you don't have that, you don't belong in the field."

She shook her head. "So pretend it never happened? Just like that?"

Guerrero sighed. "Look, do you feel bad about it?" Then, before she'd finished opening her mouth to answer, "And don't try feeding me whatever line they gave you in school. Be honest."

Ames caught her lower lip between her teeth. When she finally answered, the words still unfolded slowly, as though she were expecting a scolding from some invisible authority.

"If I hadn't done it, I'd be dead."

He nodded. "You survived. That's what matters. Don't punish yourself for being better than the other guy."

She smiled faintly. "Thanks, coach."

He snorted and patted her back. "Hardly. Don't worry, kid. You'll learn."

"It's a hell of a lesson." She said. She sighed, the gust blasting stray locks from her forehead. She tucked them behind her ear and glanced up at Guerrero, who'd looked away from her to stare into the distance. She didn't know what he saw, but even when his gaze finally slid back to her there was something far away in his tone of voice.

"Yeah, well. That's life."


	10. Fault Lines

**Characters:** Guerrero, Ames  
**Summary:** Ames isn't living. She's waiting.

* * *

Ames didn't bother checking the peep hole before she pulled open the door of her hotel room. The Grim Reaper himself could've been standing on the other end, and she would've welcomed him with a song and a smile.

It turned out she wasn't far off.

It had been almost a year to the day, and Guerrero looked the same. She wondered why that felt so surprising until she noticed his eyes skirting over her body with a slight frown creasing the corners of his mouth. Of course. She'd lost so much (_weight, sanity, hope) _in the last year that being faced with a snapshot of the way things used to be was almost too much for her system.

"You're here to kill me," she kept her voice low. No sense in alarming the neighbors, not that she expected them to rush to her aid. This was the kind of place you stayed when you wanted to be forgotten. Involving yourself in another's misery tended to lead to the opposite result.

Guerrero raised his eyebrows and inclined his chin towards the door. "Mind if I…?"

She stepped aside, letting him stroll past her into the room.

He crossed the room, dropped into her desk chair and propped his feet up on her nightstand like he'd done it a hundred times before. Ames closed and locked the door behind her, then shuffled on leaden feet to the bed. She sank to the mattress, then pulled her knees up under her chin and hugged them close.

"I was wondering when you'd find me," she said. Not that she'd tried to run. She'd considered it in the beginning, of course, but what was the point? After what she'd done, there was no place she could flee to where he'd stop hunting her.

He fixed her with a level gaze. "You said you were coming back."

"I was." She picked at a crack in the too-long nail of her big toe. "But I didn't think you wanted to see me."

She felt more than saw his gaze slide away from her. His voice sounded weary. "Well. You weren't wrong."

Once, she knew this was the part where she would have started crying. Would have apologized, explained, begged. But as the months wore on her tears had grown fewer, and her excuses had felt lamer, until the only thing she had left was the quiet resolve she now faced him with.

Well. Not _faced_. Even now, she couldn't stand to do that.

The chair creaked as Guerrero shifted. She heard his feet drop to the floor, then suddenly he was settling on the mattress next to her, one knee tucked up on the bed while his other leg dangled on the ground. Not a good position for firing a gun. Something more personal, then: stabbing, or maybe strangulation. He might even inject her with a sedative so that he could ferry her somewhere remote, somewhere he could take his time. _You don't need to bother,_ she wanted to say. _I'll go._

But her tongue had gone numb, and he hadn't yet moved.

"I don't really forgive people, you know." He said.

"I know." She squinted at the ratty hem of her sweatpants. If she'd known she was going to die today, she'd have dressed for the occasion.

"But in your case, I'm making an exception." He continued. The words fell slowly from his mouth, as though they were lines he knew well but had never acted out. "It wasn't your fault."

Ames' head jerked up. "What?"

"It wasn't your fault." He glanced at her arm, where Ames knew the ragged band of a scar lay. Almost a year to the day ago a bullet had cleaved the flesh there. Blood had flowed from her open vein until it coated her forearm like a second skin—a skin too slippery for tiny hands to hold. "You tried. It could have happened to any of us." He drew a sharp breath. "Even me."

_But it didn't, _she thought. _It happened to _me. Just one more screw-up to add to her resume, only this time the consequence was too precious to bear.

His hand closed over her shoulder, and alarm flooded her brain. This was it. Even if she was prepared to die, that didn't mean she _wanted _to. Still, she willed herself to be calm. She was determined to go with dignity for as long as she could manage it.

Guerrero sighed. Then, he shifted closer until her head was tucked against his cheek.

"I didn't come here to kill you," he said. "I came to ask if you're planning on spending the rest of your life in this dump. If so, let me know so Ilsa'll finally have somewhere to forward your mail."

His voice was soft with a touch of humor—the way he used to speak to her when they were alone, before…well, before. She sniffled loud enough to startle herself. Then she touched her face and blinked stupidly at her fingers when they came away wet.

"You're really not upset?" she whispered.

He was quiet for a long moment.

"I'm upset," he said. "But not at you."

She frowned. "But— McCarthy's crew. You didn't…?"

"Of course I did." Rage echoed in his words, and for a moment his arm around her shoulders tightened. Then, his grip went slack again, and the rage faded to grief. "But that didn't bring him back."

She buried her forehead against his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

He caught her hand—the one belonging to that hateful arm—and pressed her fingers to his lips.

For the first time since she'd crawled into this hole and waited to die, she thought it might be time to try being alive again.


	11. Dying of the Light

The jobs don't always end well. Guerrero/Ames.

* * *

Guerrero blinked. The lights came on, or at least it felt that way. Things took shape. A silhouette bathed in orange and gold. A halo of long hair frizzed to hell. Features smudged by shadow. Everything smudged, like the world as filmed by a cameraman with the shakes. No glasses, he realized. His eyes stung.

"Tell me about him."

The silhouette. Ames. Speaking through a mouth full of taffy. Sounded like it, anyway. Was she talking to him?

"About who?" He ventured, in case she was. Though he could feel the vibration of the words in his teeth, his voice didn't reach his ears. The air around them was roaring. It felt like he'd stuck his head in a five hundred degree oven.

"Your son."

His head was in her lap, he realized distantly. It would explain why breasts filled most of his field of vision. The view was nice. He wasn't going to complain.

"My son," he echoed. Dylan. Nine years old now. Third grader. Cub Scout like his dad and yes, Ames, I really _was _a Boy Scout once. Stop smiling. He plays minor league baseball. Outfield for now, but he's trying out for pitcher next season. Wants to be an Egyptologist when he grows up because he thinks mummies are cool. Bright and funny, like his mother. Looks like her too, thank God, because I'm not sure the world is ready for another handsome heartbreaker like me.

He wouldn't tell her any of that, of course. Even now, even with her, his son was not a topic up for discussion.

"He sounds like a great kid."

He closed his eyes. Smiled. Maybe. There was some kind of disconnect between his mind and his muscles. His voice was a wet rasp. "He's the only good thing I ever did."

The lights came on, but they only gave him a view of the back of his eyelids. Pressure on his face. A broad strip tapering into five distinct points. A hand. Touching him through a comforter, maybe, because he could barely feel it.

"Guerrero?"

Ames' voice was cracked, frightened. He tried to sit up, but even the thought of it exhausted him. Why couldn't he open his eyes?

"No, no." A break where she might have swallowed. "Don't move."

"Where are we?" He asked.

"What?"

"Where are we?"

"Outside," she said. "We just finished a job."

"Ames."

"Yeah?"

"What's wrong with my eyes?"

The pressure, moving. A million little tugs. Hand in his hair, petting him like a cat.

"Nothing. Just stay still."

"Ames."

"You're okay," A sniffle. "You're gonna be fine. Just don't move, okay?"

He sucked in a breath and promptly let it out as a cough that seemed to rattle every organ out of place. Ames started whispering a stream of urgent, soothing nonsense and petting him faster. Lenny and his rabbit. Her hand trembled.

"How bad is it?" He asked when he'd somewhat recovered.

She didn't answer, which was answer enough.

"The guys?"

She answered five seconds late enough for Guerrero to know whatever she said next was going to be bullshit. "I'm not sure."

"So you're the lucky one, huh?"

"Don't say that."

"I always figured you'd be the first to go."

"Don't be an asshole, either."

He continued as though she hadn't spoken. "I'm glad you didn't, though."

Silence.

The lights came on. There were thoughts in his head but they were winking out like stars, leaving a big, muzzy blank where his higher brain functions should be. No sensation. Nothing to see. No eyes, for all he knew.

But hearing. That was still going. And what he heard over a dull roar that seemed too big for the world to hold it was the sound of a woman sobbing. It had the rhythm and volume unique to those who had just witnessed fate drive a semi through everything they loved. Guerrero knew his grief. He'd been the cause of a lot of it.

What bothered him this time, though, in the part of his brain that was still spitting sparks in the darkness, was that this broken woman sounded a lot like Ames. And he couldn't open his eyes to see her, or reach out a hand to comfort her, or even ask her what was wrong.

Suddenly, deliriously, he was afraid. The blankness in his skull was closing in on his last bastion of thought. But it couldn't no, no, because there were still things he needed to say, to Ames, to Chance, hell even to Winston, and he hated leaving a job half finished. Speaking of- Dylan's game. He had a game coming up, a big one, and he'd promised he'd be there. He had to tell Ames. She had to go, or Chance had to go, because someone had to be there, someone had to keep an eye on him, and someone had to tell him that no matter what Dylan heard, no matter what anyone thought, he was always, always, _always _loved—"

"Guerrero?"

Her voice was so choked that he barely recognized his name. He wanted to answer, but his lips wouldn't move.

Another sob. When she spoke again her voice was so loud that he imagined she'd pressed her lips to his ear.

"I love you," she said. "I probably should've told you before now. But…"

But that isn't the kind of thing you say when you're dating a paranoid assassin who sorts the world into targets and liabilities, and who would've bolted like a spooked horse at the three little words normal couples toss back and forth every day.

He inhaled, though he was almost certain he imagined doing so. The sparks were fading. There was a pinprick of light in the center of his not-vision. The last hurrah of a dying brain, or the tunnel that would take him straight to hell depending on which school of thought you prescribed to. He found he didn't much care either way.

He grasped at his last thread of thought and felt it unraveling. What did it matter? But…no. There was an image in his head. A woman. Long, dark hair. Bright eyes. The kind of smile that had the irritating habit of making you happy in spite of yourself. She'd told him something important. Something that deserved an answer, even if it was too late for both of them.

"I…"


	12. Six Feet Under

Guerrero/Ames. Done for the prompt "Imagine your OTP in the afterlife" from the imagineyourotp tumblr.

* * *

"Um— should I be worried that you're here?"

"I'm not sure," Guerrero admitted, once he'd recovered from shock. Because of all the people he'd expected to run into in this strange place, Ames ranked so low that she hadn't even made the list. "I mean—what have you done?"

Since he'd last seen her, anyway, and for her that could have been two weeks or twenty years ago. Here there was no day or night to mark the passage of time, nor any celestial features to speak of. The sky was an ever-shifting striation of greys, blues, yellows, and greens that twisted in on itself over and over, a vortex to nothing. He avoided looking at it, because whenever he did he felt like a child who'd peeled back their bedsheets from their face and discovered that the thousand horrors their mind had conjured out of the darkness were looming over them, warm, real, and hungry.

Ames stared at it now, surprisingly unaffected, her face screwed up in concentration. She hadn't aged a day beyond his memories, he realized. She was still a young woman on the cusp of her thirties, with a body that years of training had honed for efficiency and grace. And now that she was before him, details that time had stolen from his mind returned with overwhelming clarity: the brown jasper shade of her hair, the fullness of her bottom lip, the way she cocked her hip when she was deep in thought. He'd missed her on the same abstract level he'd partitioned off for missing all of the people he'd cared about in life, but now that she was here again his arms were damn near trembling with the urge to hold her. But even in death he was a master of composure— he stood quietly and waited for her answer.

"Nothing worse than when you knew me," she said, finally. "And what I _did _do was for the greater good, of course."

"Of course."

"Most of the time, anyway. A girl's got to have fun. Maybe I had a little_ too_ much fun, actually."

She said it while glancing around, concern leeching her brief levity from her features. Guerrero stepped forward and rested a hand on her elbow. She wasn't warm or cold— nothing here had a temperature, really— but she was solid. She looked in surprise from his hand to his face.

"I'm real? I mean, we're not ghosts?"

He shrugged. "Even if we are, we can touch each other."

"Can we go back? To Earth, I guess?"

"Doesn't seem like it."

"Oh."

"Why? Planning on starring on an episode of Ghost Hunters?"

She smiled, and it was about as close to sunlight as he'd ever seen in this place.

"That show ended ages ago, you know. Jesus, that was before HPTVs."

"H_P_TV?"

"Holographic panel. They came out in, oh, the mid 2030s I think?"

He balked. 20_30s?_

"How old are you now?" he asked.

She _tsked _him. "Rude! But if you must know I am—well, was—eighty-four."

"Eighty-four. Wow."

He tried to imagine how the wrinkles would have settled on her face, or how the contours of her body would have changed as the years wore away fat and muscle to leave her frail and soft. But he was no better at projecting old age onto her than he had been onto Chance, or even himself. He'd (correctly, it seemed) never expected that he'd live long enough to have to worry about it.

"You died the day before my birthday, you know."

He blinked out of his reverie not because of her words, but because she'd stepped into his arms. He'd grown accustomed to only rare, brief contact with his fellow dead. When he embraced her it felt good, but strange. Like blood flowing back into a limb he'd compressed for so long that he'd stopped noticing that it had gone numb.

"I did?" he asked. Though he'd tried several times, he couldn't remember the circumstances of his death. Given that some of his enemies were as creative as he was when it came to testing the limits of human endurance, he'd decided that that was a good thing.

"Yes. It was very inconsiderate. You don't remember?"

"No."

She was quiet for a moment.

"Well I guess it doesn't matter now, anyway," she said.

He couldn't say how long they stood there, he still amazed by her presence and she seemingly content to remain in his arms for as long as he'd let her.

"What then?" he asked.

"What, after you died?"

"No— well, yeah, actually. I mean, what was the rest of your life like?"

"Really? You want the whole story?"

He shrugged. "Why not?"

"It'll take a while, you know."

He gestured to the crumbling city that stretched on forever around them. "I think we've got all the time we need."


End file.
